I love it when people volunteer to interpret the U.S. Constitution for me. It causeth me much ranting.

On one side you’ve got Liberals who try to peddle the Constitution as a “Living Document” which means it says something other than what it says. Apparently the Constitution lives and breathes and changes itself (without changing the actual words on the document) to mean whatever a Liberal wants it to mean at any given moment. This is so convenient that I myself briefly considered becoming a liberal just to take advantage of the highest law in the land saying that that cute redhead has to go out with me Saturday because it’s the law…. Eh, maybe when I get my nerve up.

Not to be outdone, Conservatives try to interpret the document using the “Intent of the Founders.” Well, which Founder? Leaving aside the fact that they are kind of hard to talk to at this point, the Founders were rarely if ever of one mind about anything. They spent the majority of their time screaming at each other. The Constitution was the best compromise these stubborn men could make. And it was painful all around.

My pedestrian opinion about these things is that if it is not in the document, it’s not covered.

I call myself a “Constitutional Literalist;” maybe the term will catch on.

I think the biggest problem has to be that lawyers tend to think that if an argument is clever it is automatically a good one, even the lawyers on the Supreme Court. This means that the document gets twisted into positions it simply does not cover. For example:

Abortion – not covered

Healthcare - not covered

Education – not covered

Food Stamps – not covered

Marriage – not covered

Also, pending a Constitutional Amendment, we are stuck with the Post Office. It’s in there.

There are many laws regarding these issues that may or may not be allowed by the Constitution, but they are not “Constitutional Rights.” If you want them to be added to the Constitution, by all means, try to amend the Constitution. That is difficult and it is supposed to be. Instructions for that are in Article V, and if you are reading this, you can look it up at will.

Tuesday, April 23, 2013

I didnt get hedlines from Conservativ Princess but @CasualMeyhem sent us tha rant blow Yay!OMG as usul, I hav no idea wat hes takin about in his rant b-low (or on tha tweeter)so if u got complaintz, pls direct them 2 tha man-troll hisself, @CasualMeyhem

Dialogue

Disclaimer: My two least favorite music genres are Rap and Country, or probably Country and Rap actually. So musically, “Accidental Racist” never stood a snowball’s chance in hell of making me a fan. That said….

Erick Holder once called us a “Nation of Cowards” because we won’t have an honest and open dialogue on race. Well, we’ve got one now, are we cowards or not?

Brad Paisley and LL Cool J aren’t cowards. They set it out there and offended everybody. Did anyone stop to think that somehow being offended at a lousy but well intended song means only that we are all way too easily offended? Hell, there are folks who use being offended as a career path!

(And you know who you are!)

That is exactly the kind of idiocy that prevents an “honest and open dialogue.” If we really want a dialogue, we are going to need to grow thicker skins, speak our minds and, let the other people do the same. Personal restraint is obviously not adequate for this discussion. So to force it, I don’t know, maybe use two sound booths and shut off the microphones when it’s not a person’s turn to speak. Might be good concept for presidential debates too, but I digress.

If we are ever to judge people by “the content of their character” we’ve got to listen to them long enough to discover what it is. If we want some kind of objective truth, we must listen to the lies and know them for what they are, regardless of personal discomfort.

This will not be a job for histrionic race baiters. Hell, they aren’t even funny anymore, just sad. But more to the point, they are destructive to the very ends they claim to support. If screaming “RACIST!” every time someone says something you don’t agree with was going to work, it would have worked DECADES AGO!

My truths?

No matter what you say or do, not everyone is going to agree with you. The flip side is at least you are not required to agree with everyone else.

At some point, trying to make people like you is simply not worth it.

There are people who do not want an honest debate. For varying reasons preventing honest dialogue is in their direct interest. Take Al Sharpton, he makes his living race-baiting. There are many others.

No answer or solution is ever permanent. Things change without anyone’s permission.

Thursday, April 11, 2013

I am doing my daily “let’s go through the news so I don’t get behind” thing, when I notice a story at Politico about poor capitol hill staffers upset that a group called LegiStorm listed their Twitter accounts.

“?!!?” says I.

One of my personal pet peeves is people who get pissed at the wrong thing. There is other personal information listed in these profiles that should not be (spouse, home address etc.), but strangely it seems to be the Twitter accounts that are setting everyone off. I guess these bright young men and women somehow fail to understand what Twitter is.

Twitter is the electronic version of Hyde Park, where anyone can stand on a soap box and speechify with a megaphone. Each of these fine young staffers is one of those idiots, and I am another. There are many, many more idiots out there as well. We can, if we so choose, have a conversation, by screaming into our megaphones in turn. What we cannot do, is have a private conversation by pretending everyone else in the park is deaf. Twitter does not work that way. Anything said on Twitter is permanent, on the record, and if you know how to look, writ across the sky in flaming letters for all the world to see.

“But, but, but, YOU write under an alias!” someone is sure to whine. So I do. That’s not going to prevent anyone who wants to find me from doing so. I am just petty enough to make them work for it. After all, if you want to be good at something like being petty, you have to practice.

This is not even a new concept. For decades now we have been treated to long parades of people who somehow did not realize that everything done online is on the record forever. I really like bold Italicized underlines so let me say this again:

I’ve noticed some people (who would be brilliant if they just agreed with me) seem to think, the youth vote just isn’t that important. If you look only at the numbers you would be correct. But there are some things being overlooked that the Democrats have been using to their benefit for a long time now.

Let’s start with these nuggets.

They grow up: Regardless of your opinion of the kids today, they are going to be the adults of tomorrow. They are not going to ask permission any more than we did. You may want to be on speaking terms with them before that happens. No one is in the same demographic forever.

They remember what you say and do: In my experience I remember what my parents and teachers said to me to a shocking degree. Brilliant or stupid, nice or mean, thoughtful or off the cuff, that sort of thing defined my starting point as I started to develop my own opinions about everything.

They hold grudges: Do you remember that one teacher or adult who did that horribly unjust thing to you back in whatever grade? So do I. I’ve spent decades vowing not to be like that S.O.B. Mostly I’ve succeeded. Maybe I’ll calm down eventually. It’s only been twenty odd years after all.

They are education-impaired: We send these young people to schools and pay professors lots of money to tell them about the left side of every issue. If you want them to ever hear an opposing view, you have to give it to them. Not arguing so much as “Have you considered x,y,z?” As often as not, no one has ever told them about it at all, much less without attacking them. Give them some new data and let them work it out. They will come around. They are education –impaired, not stupid.

They are darned useful: Did you know this last election my Precinct captain was unable to go door to door because she was just not healthy enough? (Neither was I) It was the younger ones we counted on to do that sort of thing because we could not. There were also volunteers that were not even old enough to vote that worked the call centers. So what if it was a part time teen dating service – you’ve never seen that many chaperones in one place in your life. I honestly can’t think of a safer place to drop off a teen.

In conclusion, have you noticed the shellacking the right has been taking lately? We gave the left this high ground without a fight. We must take it back.